gentlegiver

[gentlegiver]

freakarc​.

There has been a habit of important people carving holes into his life; holes in shapes impossible to refill with anybody else but them. He thinks of Beth and thinks of all the others, and the difference is that she’s holding onto him, right now, as he might even start entertaining the idea of life trying to take her away. And he’s nothing if not a stubborn son of a bitch.

“Pretty shitty,” he echoes with half a smile, though sincere in all its glory. It has to be real to drag a curse out of one Beth March, and it is, he knows it is — he’s just… choosing to ignore it. 

No, not ignore. Fight. 

Eddie’s sure enough time has passed, he knows he should restart the motion of the van, move, keep going, whatever. But what if the stay frozen like this until he can come up with a solution? What if he hits pause, just for long enough to know how to make it better? Call it a cliffhanger, even. The end of a chapter, or the climax of the story, a point from which everything should either start to fall into place or turn into an absolute shit-show. If he’s puppeteering anything in his life, he’ll choose this to be the moment where he stops life from happening. He’ll refuse any control from now on if he could do just this one thing and save her. Be a hero.

A light squeeze, gentle, tinted with sad acceptance. His eyes are back on the road, and he takes a turn to the left.

She’s never been one to need saving, and he’s anything but a hero.

“How long—?” Do you have? Have you known? Is it insensitive to ask? Does he really wanna know? Deep breath in, jaw clenched, anxiety riddled fingers tap against the steering wheel. “You gotta see me graduate, remember?” ‘You promised’ almost slipped out, and he feels like an asshole for it. Like an asshole and a child, so small it makes him angry with himself.

“I dunno.”    And she really, truly doesn’t know how long she has.  When she was a child, the doctors used to always say that Beth would be lucky to see her teenage years, yet here she is now, only a couple months shy of eighteen, almost an adult.  She can’t help but think, though, that they’re all just prolonging the inevitable––some more than others.  Maybe it’s just because she’s the one living it, but sometimes she thinks Marmee is the only one who totally understands just how unlikely it is that she’ll get better.

She loves her sisters, dearly, more than her dolls and her piano and the kittens all combined, but they’re such fusspots, and they think they know best.  They think if they wish and want and pray hard enough, she’ll be able to battle through all of this, to come out on the other side unscathed.  While Beth is not omnipotent, and can’t say for sure that they’re wrong, the doctors practically can, and have.  It’s not something she’s come to terms with yet, if one can ever come to terms with that kind of news, but every day comes with a greater ability to wrap her head around it, and a greater appreciation for the wonderful life that she has, and has had.  Isn’t that all she can hope for, at the end of the day?

The already-frayed edges of her pullover are picked at, threads twisted and pulled at, a nervous little tic that only gives her more sewing projects for when she’s stuck in hospital.  Silver linings, and whatnot.    “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”    The plain honest truth is what spills from a tired-but-warm smile, gaze swivelling from the dashboard to the driver, and then back to the darkness beyond the windscreen.    “Besides, when have you ever known me to break a pinky promise?”

#freakarc #i love them :( so much :(

[gentlegiver]

i love this scene for many, many reasons, but i just love how beth is bathed in the light from the window i think it’s really beautiful–

#she's my baby girl my favourite

[gentlegiver]

beth is all the beauty and kindness and love that exists in the world as a person and that’s. that’s so incredibly important to me :(

#sonny sent me like 2 l*ttle w*men tiktoks and now i'm spiralling over my baby beth again #IT'S ALWAYS UR FAULT SONNY .. ALWAYS

[gentlegiver]

freakarc​.

“  Good woman,  ”  he’s quick to mumble when Mrs. March’s name is peppered in the conversation. Beth sticks out like a sore thumb in this crowd of lovely misfits, even in her hellfire t-shirt now, when it’s just the two of them, and Eddie allows himself to tone it down a notch.

He goes quiet for a moment, lost in a certain fascination for her family, and when he would usually smile thinking about it, it pains him now. There’s always a comforting, cosy chaos happening in their household, he can’t bare to think about the grief struck quiet that’s gonna wash over a whole family if anything were to happen to Beth– maybe it’s selfish to think about them, but he can’t handle to process it as something that’s also going to catch up with him. And it’s even more selfish to put it in those terms when it’s happening to Beth, even as they’re driving kind of aimlessly now.

The stop sign has him flooring a pedal; you do always drive like a maniac, he hears himself say in a ‘ i told you so ’ manner. A hand comes to clutch Beth’s arm, “  Shit, dude, sorry ‘bout that,  ”  The other– covered in ashes of a self consumed cigarette he forgot he’d kept in between fingers until then– holding onto the steering wheel for dear life. He manages to smile,  “  I could do with some greasy, cheesy pizza,  ”  The next pause is brief, his eyes on the road again:  “  I dunno where I went there for a sec, I’m sorry,  ”  He carries himself like a man on top of the world, but he does often feel like a child, especially now while he’s desperately reaching for her hand.  “  I’m sorry…  I don’t wanna make this weird, but– shit, man. Just. Shit.  ”

Marmee is indeed a good woman  ––  the very best that there could ever be, actually  ––  but Beth accepts that she might just be biased in this instance.  (She doesn’t think she is, though.)  And truth be told, there are few people on this earth that Mrs. March would be okay with Beth staying out late with; one of the few ways that she is treated like a china doll by a loving family, wrapped tightly in bubble wrap to prevent any breakage.  They don’t want to clip her wings, or take away what little independence life has given her; it’s only with each other and a select few (those with the surnames Munson and Lawrence, primarily) that they trust to take good care of her.

The two have been lost in the eloquence of silence for a minute, comfortable enough in each other’s company to do so, though she knows that it’s their way of putting off the inevitable.  The discussion of something painfully difficult, and Beth has learned that it never gets easier.  She can’t help but laugh at his reaction to the stop sign suddenly hurtling into view, pressing backwards into the upholstery of her seat as an attempt to stop herself from going through the windscreen; her frame shoots forward about an inch, but she’s otherwise successful, no doubt thanks to his grip on her.

“Y’don’t need to apologise, Eddie.  I––  I get it.”    There’s a quiver in her voice that she hopes he doesn’t acknowledge, reaching up to grab onto his hand with a tightness that she wasn’t sure she was even capable of.    “It’s a pretty  ...  shitty situation.”    Soft voice is even softer than usual, profanity unfamiliar in her mouth and even more foreign leaving her tongue.

#freakarc #stop i love them so freaking much

[gentlegiver]

freakarc​.

Time passes like he figures it would. Like this is just another session; they scream, and shout, and knock things off the table, and throw profanity after profanity, after profanity at Eddie, who takes it with a sadistic cackle and enormous grin, like it’s the highest of compliments. In a way it is, and he may even look like he’s just enjoying himself like he does every week, but the mirage sometimes drops for a split second when he looks at Beth. He smiles with a warmth that seems out of place, but then he’s back to being the Dungeon Master everyone fears and, sometimes, loves. It all quiets down, eventually, when there’s a cliffhanger before the metaphorical curtains close, and Eddie smiles like he’s fed off the rage of his friends who want more, and he won’t give them that, not yet. Everyone goes their merry way when felicitations and pats on the back are offered and received, and then there’s only two.

“  If I told you, it’d ruin half the fun, and we don’t want that now, do we?  ”  He places a cigarette between his lips, out of habit more than true desire for nicotine. He hasn’t forgotten about it, about why it’s just them here, pretty hard to do as such, but he’s never liked to push. Not when it came to things that were so personal– so scary.

“  Nah. I mean– yeah, but it’s not like that. It kinda, like. When I start thinking about a new campaign, it takes me a while to find the right–  ”  a hand comes to flatten Beth’s frizzy patch of hair, it doesn’t fix it but it kind of tames it down a bit,  “ –spot. And once I know where I wanna go, it just happens. Sometimes it’s all I can think about. It’s wild,  ”  When he opens her door, because that’s what Wayne taught him, and helps her in the van, he takes an extra moment to ruffle the top of Beth’s head, messing up her hair more, a side, accomplished smile plastered on his face as he makes it to the driver’s seat.  “  Should we find somewhere to eat? What ya wanna do?  ”

“I guess not, Mister Dungeon Master.”  Even her teases are good-natured, gentle, lacking in the bite that some others might lash them out with.  Ever the quiet observer, she eyes his cigarette with a muted sort of interest, and she can’t help but wonder if kids with peanut allergies look at a Snickers bar in the same way.  They aren’t entirely comparable scenarios, Beth supposes, but they’re close enough.  She certainly doesn’t want to test the waters and see if what she supposes is incorrect.

There is the urge to swat his hand away from her hair (tousling what he just tried to tame), the same way she would with her sisters, but she can’t quite bring herself to do it; not after such a gentlemanly display of chivalry, anyway.  He reminds her of Jo a little bit, the way he talks about being consumed by that creative streak, inhabiting it wholly until it’s passed on.  The passion and the animation, it’s all so very familiar to her, for she sees it in her older sister.    “Oh, I don’t mind.  I told Marmee I’d be––”    Breaking bad news?  Dropping an atomic bomb size truth on a dear friend?  Putting a dampener on an otherwise excellent game night?    “––a bit late tonight, just so she doesn’t wait up for me, but something tells me that she’s going to anyway.”    Fondness always features when she speaks about her family, and this is no exception, even if she does pout a little, the closest to teenage behaviour that Beth has yet come.    “We could always split a pizza, or something?”

#it IS so personal oh my god i love them what the shit #freakarc

[gentlegiver]

freakarc​.

@gentlegiver    🎲    ❛  you still have doubts about it, don’t you ?  ❜

It is after a while that he speaks.  “  Yes,  ”  Elbows propped, hands clasped together,  almost as if they’re meant to be shielding his face. It’s not something he can control, but he’s damn trying not to overreact. This isn’t about him, this isn’t about anyone, actually, other than Beth, and she doesn’t need to explain it further, she doesn’t need him to give her a pitiful look, either. Shit, he’s sure she’s sick and tired of those from people who don’t care half as much as he does.  

“  Questions, actually, March. I have questions. Doubts make it sound like, I don’t know, like I don’t believe you. ”  Maybe today’s not the day, he thinks, taking a quick look at the clock that hangs from a distant wall. The rest of them are gonna start showing up soon, it’s Hellfire night, they’re in the middle of the campaign, and he’s been talking big about this session all week.  “  We could hang out later? Drive around, talk– yeah? That okay?  ”

She may have acquiesced in the moment, but the session that followed was spent almost entirely in her head, worrying about what she was going to say and how she was going to say it, trying to keep the sliver of a nerve that she had built up in the first place intact.  Relief had flooded her at first, when he suggested that they leave the discussion of doubts––questions, he corrected, and so she tries to reframe it all in that light––until afterwards, when the adrenaline was only beginning to wear off, but the longer Beth’s left to think about it, the more dread she finds herself filled with.  It only worsens the faint rattle in her chest, perceptible whenever she laughs or coughs, both of which she tends to do a lot of when the club are meeting.  There’s nothing too out of the ordinary about it, at the very least; the last thing she would want is to draw even more attention to herself, to worry her friends unneccessarily.

“I dunno how you come up with half of this stuff, Eddie,”  A murmur which is as endearing as it is modest, even after a few years of friendship.  Her cheeks don’t flush anymore, though, and she doesn’t shy away from making eye contact.  Two surefire signs that she’s as comfortable as she can be with someone who isn’t a March.  She tugs a cosy pullover over her head, a much beloved hand-me-down from Meg, about two sizes too big for her.  It leaves a patch of frizz behind in her hair, tousling a braid that was already messy to begin with, but Beth pays it no mind, offering him a smile of the sweetest sort.  “It must take you an absolute age.”  Maybe she is trying to delay the inevitable a little bit.  A part of her thinks she’s allowed to.

#freakarc #:) friendo welcome to our first thread ever :) i hope ur ready for it because i'm sure as shit not :)

[gentlegiver]

here, cherished like a household saint in its shrine, sat beth, tranquil and busy as ever, for nothing could change the sweet, unselfish nature, and even while preparing to leave life, she tried to make it happier for those who should remain behind.        [    .  .  .    ]        if beth had wanted any reward, she found it in the bright little faces always turned up to her window, with nods and smiles, and the droll little letters which came to her, full of blots and gratitude.

#sp. #little women rp #chapter 40 of the book pains me so much.

[gentlegiver]

i’ll never understand ppl who whine about how beth is a bland character because she’s “too good”, like … that’s not the case? she’s human. she forgot to feed her pet bird for a week and he dies as a result of it. she gets snappy when she’s bored (she may only vent to her dolls, but still). she doesn’t like washing dishes, she also struggles with her responsibilities and the selflessness that marmee encourages the girls to possess (albeit less so than her sisters). her social anxiety quite literally impacts her life in a negative way, it’s debilitating. the narrator literally describes her as being “not an angel” because she longs for a better piano than the one she has — her flaws mightn’t be as obvious or emphasised as her sisters’, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist, and it certainly doesn’t mean she’s boringly perfect

#🤧🤧 the beth slander has got to stop #literary critics don’t know what they’re talking about #if i read one more piece that includes the sentiment ‘beth had to die’ i will scream!!! no she did not!!!! #the idea that beth /wanted/ to die? also bullshit. that girl wanted so much to live. she struggled so much with her illness #just because her family places her on a pedestal and she keeps her struggles to herself doesn’t negate any of that #animal death mention /

[gentlegiver]

no because why is beth emily-bronte-coded

#LIKE HELLO ...

[gentlegiver]

THE MARCH SISTERS: BETH MARCH

“Beth was the best of us.”

#* the soft stars that shine at night. #baby girl :(